


Flowers for Ashtoreth

by tigersinlondon



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Fake Marriage, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Kissing, Language of Flowers, M/M, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, Pining, Warlock era, idiots to lovers, raising warlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:41:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22578760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigersinlondon/pseuds/tigersinlondon
Summary: It's nine years before The End of The World, and Crowley and Aziraphale decide that their personas as Nanny Ashtoreth and Brother Francis should be married, so as to prevent scandal when they meet frequently to plot and swap progress notes. During their time undercover, Aziraphale starts attempting to grow flowers in the Victorian style of the language of flowers, in order to confess his feelings to Crowley. This is much too subtle to be directed at a being who was asleep for the entirety of this particular craze, leading to canon-typical miscommunication and a goodly amount of mutual pining!After a few of Crowley's attempts to humour Aziraphale's newfound love of human gardening methods get lost in translation, Aziraphale is forced to say what he really means.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Nanny Ashtoreth/Brother Francis (Good Omens)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 187
Collections: Good Omens Big Bang 2019





	Flowers for Ashtoreth

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Art Masterpost: Flowers for Ashtoreth](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22480738) by [3226629](https://archiveofourown.org/users/3226629/pseuds/3226629). 



> Big shout-out to arthulian (on tumblr) for capslock-shouting with me over this fic when I first started writing it, and for egging me on to sign up for the Big Bang. I literally wouldn't have written this without your enabling my nonsense.
> 
> Thank you also to my GO group chat for convincing me to actually finish it. Love yall.
> 
> The BIGGEST shout-out to my wonderful artist Ms 3, who did this BEAUTIFUL artwork (see 'inspired by') to go along with my writing, and contributed to my numerous emotions about the language of flowers!! Couldn't have asked for a better partner <3 Click through to Ms 3's post for bonus Nanny Ashtoreth content...

“It’s a simple plan,” Crowley explains at unnecessary length while Aziraphale packs up the bookshop. “It makes sense. If the nanny and the gardener are married, then it just makes sense that they should see each other regularly.” He nudges Aziraphale’s calf where it’s at his elbow height on a step ladder. “We can keep each other updated.”

“But they could just be friends,” protests Aziraphale from the shelves above. “Or, or associates. Or they don’t need to know each other beforehand at all.”

“Angel, you don’t know how these households gossip. An unmarried woman and an unmarried man having regular clandestine meetings? We’d be out before you can say ‘scandalous affair’.”

“Well, couldn’t you just…” Aziraphale wiggles his fingers and raises his eyebrows.

“Not with the Antichrist around. His presence can undo any of our miracles if he disagrees with them. And we won’t be able to mess with his mind, anyhow.” Crowley huffs. “No, we’re safer with good old fashioned lying.”

-

Ms Ashtoreth and Mr Francis arrive for their job posts in a battered little car that Crowley refuses to drive on principle of it not being the Bentley. Mr Francis can, theoretically, drive, therefore Aziraphale is able to move the car up the driveway, though not in any way that a human riding in the car with them might have identified as driving. Fortunately, no one is looking too closely.

It is also fortunate that no one was listening too closely either, as they may have heard a rather odd conversation as the pair parked the vehicle and approached the door.

“Shouldn’t we be holding hands?” says Mr Francis, awkward in a frumpy overcoat, protecting his felt hat from escaping on the breeze with his spare hand.

Ms Ashtoreth looks severe in a neatly pressed pinstriped suit jacket and matching pencil skirt. Her designer sunglasses tuck into victory-rolled hair, the length of it pulled back into a neat bun at the nape of her neck. She does not look like the sort of woman who holds hands with her spouse. “I should think not, angel.”

She also does not look like the type to use petnames for her spouse, and yet.

“And should I look younger? I wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong sort of idea about your character, but I think perhaps the grey and the sideburns were a little much. Don’t you think?”

“Stop dithering, _Mr Francis_ , you’ll be overheard.”

Mr Francis’ dithering continues, but silently. His hand passes subtly over the lower portion of his face, and when he removes it, his buckteeth are gone, and his sideburns a little more tamed.

The butler answers the door. He is a tall wiry man in a well-fitting suit, clean-shaven except for a small neat moustache, and his hairline is receding slightly into a refined widow’s peak. When he speaks, there is a hint of an Irish accent, though plastered over with BBC English pronunciation. “Ah,” he says brightly, after a moment. “You’re the new hires. Mr…?”

“Francis,” says Mr Francis.

“And you must be the missus,” he says amiably, then leans in slightly, and gives them both a friendly grin. “I must say, I almost wouldn’t have recognised you if not for your wife. You look…” He looks as if he would very much like to gesture to Mr Francis’ face, but has been taught better than that. “Different. Than at your interview.”

“He had some dental work done, Mr Sullivan.” Ms Ashtoreth explains, with a carefully neutral expression.

“Oh, no offense intended, my dear lady! And you can call me John.” Mr Sullivan steps back from the threshold and opens the door wider for them to enter.

Ms Ashtoreth bristles. Her husband lays a gentle, but restraining, hand on her arm. “Thank you John,” he says. “If you could see us to the study, I believe Mrs Dowling would like a word.”

“By all means.” Mr Sullivan steps back to allow them in. He looks as if he expects Mr Francis to be forthcoming with his own first name, perhaps, or that of his wife’s, but the pair have passed him and are already ascending the central staircase across the entrance hall. He starts to walk briskly to catch up with them; a manner of hurrying without resorting to an ungainly jog, perfected by years of catching up with Mr Dowling’s self-important stride.

“Oh, Mrs Francis?”

Ashtoreth turns on her sharp heel. “It’s Ms Ashtoreth, if you _don’t_ mind,” she says severely. This may have been a bad idea.

-

“Now,” says Mrs Dowling. “How might we accommodate the two of you, in light of your particular situation? I’m happy to help us come to a mutually agreeable arrangement.” She does not look happy to help.

“It would be lovely to have a day off each week to spend together. Perhaps a weekday, so that when Warlock starts school we might interrupt his schedule less.” Ashtoreth says in a manner that might be gentle, if it weren’t for her sharp expression, which doesn’t change throughout the conversation. Her face is partially hidden by her stylish sunglasses, adding to the effect.

Mrs Dowling does not react, because she has been around enough of her husband’s business and political associates that she recognises a power play when she sees one.

“Of course, that shouldn’t be a problem,” she says smoothly, talking directly to Ashtoreth now. “Though of course, we’ll expect you to stay in the rooms next to Warlock’s, in case he gets difficult in the night time. And we’ve already made the cottage up for your husband, in the east side of the estate.”

“Of course,” Ashtoreth replies.

“And it would be convenient for us if you were to stick with the same day each week, since we will have to book a sitter.”

“That sounds amenable,” says Ashtoreth, tone neutral.

“Well then!” Francis claps his hands together and smiles brightly, indifferent or perhaps oblivious to the tension in the room. Mrs Dowling looks ready to open her mouth to impose another condition, but Francis cuts her off with a cheery: “Should we say Tuesdays, for now, darling?”

Ashtoreth makes a small choked-off sound, looks to her husband, then composes herself again. “Hm, yes.” She looks back to Mrs Dowling. “Thank you for your time, Mrs Dowling.” She offers a small polite nod, rather than reaching out to shake her employer’s hand.

(If Crowley repeats ‘darling?’ incredulously to Aziraphale once they are dismissed, well, Mrs Dowling doesn’t hear it.)

-

The first two years are stressful. Warlock is a fractious child, and the previous nanny believed firmly in discipline and the avoidance of coddling, so the boy is desperately in need of attention. Fortunately, Nanny Ashtoreth is happy to provide all the attention and moulding a three-year-old Antichrist could ever want. She takes to the boy immediately, and he to her. Ashtoreth speaks to Warlock as if he is a smaller-than-average adult, not a toddler, instructing him and giving him structured choices in her firm yet gentle manner. She rarely speaks to the other staff, choosing instead to engage only with her husband and her charge.

Most of the staff get the hint within the first six months that Ashtoreth does not take well to nonsense or shenanigans, at least from them. She seems to encourage it in little Warlock. Most notably, she uses the allowance from Mrs Dowling to purchase a tricycle for the child when he turns four, and teaches him to ride it indoors along the expensive carpets and old wooden floors. Mrs Dowling suspects something is afoot when she spies scratch marks along her varnished floors, but never catches her son using the offending vehicle inside, and so blames it on the put-upon maid instead.

Ashtoreth has rooms in the main house, as promised. Her windowsills quickly become lined with glossy houseplants, and her bed piled high with thick dark-coloured blankets. Her red-and-black plaid dressing gown hangs on a hook on the back of the door, the matching slippers next to multiple pairs of identical black low-heeled shoes on a plain shoe rack nearby. She wears similar variants of the same outfit each day, though the small Ikea wardrobe that sits in the corner of the room does not look big enough for all of them. As expected, she spends most of her time with Warlock directly, feeding him, teaching him to read, to write, to insult people, and to command an army. He seems more keen on collecting Lego sets than commanding his teddy bear army, though he does then mix them up so they are indistinguishable and Ashtoreth is unable to put them back in their individual boxes, so she will take whatever seeds of chaos she can get.

This leaves her husband, most if not all nights, alone in the draughty cottage at the eastern end of the estate. It had a problem with damp before Mr Francis moved in, and not nearly as many bookcases as it seems to have now. The uncomfortable cot bed found itself relaxing into a plush queen-size the first time Ms Ashtoreth stretched out upon it. It has at least six pillows, now. Mr Francis keeps it that way, though never uses it himself.

Ashtoreth spends Tuesday afternoons in the cottage or walking the grounds with her husband, as agreed, but the mornings find her reading to Warlock from a book of rather dark fairytales, the child spread out half across her lap and half across the parlour’s sofa cushions. Tuesday evenings she returns to her tidy rooms across the hall from Warlock’s bedroom. She carries the boy from the playroom to his dinosaur-patterned bed, after Mrs Dowling has left him to his own devices in favour of a stiff drink and some time alone. She sings him to sleep. The household staff whisper that she must be barren, that she wanted a child so badly that she would abandon her marriage bed to look after someone else’s toddler.

One evening, Aziraphale overhears John Sullivan and the maid speculating on whether Ashtoreth’s childlessness puts a strain on her marriage, that perhaps that’s the cause of their spending their downtime separately, the reason no one ever sees them act affectionately, even hold hands. Aziraphale is reminded uncomfortably of the reality of the situation, the real reason why Crowley refuses to touch him in any sort of intimate or affectionate manner, even to keep up the act. He thinks of the last favour he did for Crowley, and the words that doused the coals of any budding relationship Crowley may have been hoping for at the time. Aziraphale considers the five or six more years they have here together, considers his empty cottage, and thinks, regretfully, of that unfortunate conversation in the Bentley, almost 50 years ago. And then, he has an idea.

-

Warlock has had a Bad Day. Not a Very Bad Day, requiring something serious to be done about it, but a Bad Day nonetheless, which requires blankets and Nanny’s hot cocoa with extra marshmallows and The Princess and the Frog on repeat in the background. Mummy doesn’t let Warlock watch The Princess and the Frog, because Daddy said it wasn’t appropriate for a boy. Nanny mostly seems to acquiesce to these kinds of demands from Warlock’s parents, except for when she doesn’t, which is quite frequently. Warlock loves The Princess and the Frog, so when he’s squirreled away in the den with Nanny, being allowed to watch his favourite movie and drink Nanny’s ‘patented and devilish’ hot cocoa under blankets when it’s not even night outside, he finally feels safe to conclude that today was a Bad Day.

As to what exactly happened to warrant such a label, it is suffice to say that Warlock’s first day of reception had been rather trying, what with his attempts to make friends somewhat hindered by the security guard tailing him. One of the children had said something snide, and Warlock had said something cruel in return, and the whole situation ended with Warlock getting a bloody nose. Unbeknownst to Warlock, Mummy is considering the pros and cons of having him home-schooled. On the pros list is that she wouldn’t have to go alone to parents’ evening and look like ‘one of _those_ single mothers’; on the cons list is that Warlock would be ‘under her feet’ at home more.

Nanny had scooped him up when Daddy had finished berating him over Skype, and had given him a few tips on getting away from adults, using his small size to his advantage, and so on.

Nanny now sits rod-straight in her wicker chair, punching a thick needle through a cross stitch canvas, while Warlock is riveted to the TV screen. The calming rhythm of the push-pull of the needle and the glide of the thread makes Warlock look over at her during a lull in the film. He grins at her, Bad Day all but forgotten, when he spies the small red chrysanthemum in her hair.

“What’s that?” asks Warlock, around a chocolate-sticky tongue.

Nanny may or may not look up from her cross stitch; Warlock can’t see beyond her glasses. “Be specific, Warlock. What’s what?”

Warlock shifts round to face her. “The flower. Is it from the garden?”

“Yes, dear.” Nanny does noticeably look up now, and puts her needle partway through the fabric as she pauses. “My husband picked it from the beds near the gate.”

“Oh, okay.” Warlock looks back at the screen, and then opens his mouth again. “Why are they called beds? Flowers don’t have pillows.”

Nanny looks at him with something that might be identified as pride, by someone who knows Nanny quite well, but not Warlock, who sees no particular change to her expression. “That’s a good question, Warlock. I think because it is a comfortable place for the flowers to rest. What do you think?”

Warlock thinks a moment. “Brother Francis says he puts down _mull_ , which is like a blanket for the plants.”

Nanny scoffs. “Mr Francis spoils those plants rotten. It’s a wonder he got them to produce any flowers at all.” She leans forward in her chair. “When you rule over everything, you’ll have to be very firm with the plant-life. Only an iron fist makes the flowers bloom.” She sits back again. “And it’s called _mulch_ , dear.”

“Mulch.” Warlock repeats. “How long have you and Mr Francis been married?”

“Oh, years and years…” she says, and her lips curl gently upwards on one side. “But sometimes it feels like just yesterday.”

One year is a long time, thinks Warlock. So, years and years must be a very long time.

He goes silent again as on screen, Tiana hops through the Mardi Gras parade. Nanny doesn’t resume her cross stitch for a good five minutes.

-

At some point, Crowley decides a ring is in order. Married women wear rings, and perhaps it would give Mrs Dowling’s lecherous male houseguests the (correct) hint that Ms Ashtoreth is very firmly off the market. There are only so many times that he can give the aforementioned lechers indigestion before he resorts to breaking his own rule of avoiding major miracles around the Antichrist. So, Nanny Ashtoreth begins to wear her wedding ring.

“How long have you been married to Nanny?” Warlock asks Brother Francis on a sunny Wednesday, as he is wrestling with a particularly wilful patch of weeds.

Brother Francis wipes the back of a muddy hand across his brow. “Many years, my boy. At least as long as you’ve been alive.”

“So why is she only wearing her wedding ring now?”

Warlock receives a stern look, which melts slowly into a fond one. “You’d better ask her that, young Warlock.” Aziraphale recalls that Ashtoreth told a nosy maid she had previously worn it on a chain around her neck.

“Nanny says you’ve been married for years and years and years,” says Warlock, undeterred, “But sometimes it feels like yesterday.”

“Ah,” says Brother Francis. “Time flows oddly for adults sometimes. A long stretch of river might flow so quickly that the distance seems negligible -ah, that means a very small amount- and so a long time might seem short, once you have passed it. That’s why you have to make the most of the time you have, and fill it with kindness and love.”

Warlock wrinkles his nose as Brother Francis looks dramatically into the middle distance, beyond the pile of weeds sitting sadly at his feet. “Nanny says kindness won’t matter if I destroy the world.”

“Well, with enough love and kindness, why would you _want_ to destroy it? Without the world, you wouldn’t have… well…” He rests back on his haunches and looks thoughtful. “Flowers, or blankets, or… Nanny’s _devilish_ hot cocoa.”

A butterfly flits past and Warlock is momentarily distracted. “But there wouldn’t be wasps,” he points out.

“That’s true. But wasps are important too, Master Warlock. They might act mean, but they stop pests from eating our tomatoes.”

“I like tomatoes,” Warlock admits. “And I wouldn’t get to play with Nanny anymore. If the world ended.”

“You’re right.” Brother Francis stands, and brushes off his knees.

“And _you_ wouldn’t get to see Nanny anymore either.”

“That’s also true,” he says, in an oddly wistful voice, “but I hope that I’ll have her by my side, right up until the very end.”

Warlock watches another butterfly land on the peony bush, and waits until it flies away before he opens his mouth again.

“Will you help me find another flower for Nanny? She liked that one you gave her. Before.”

“Did she, now?”

“She wore it in her hair until it dried up, and then I saw her put it in her room.”

Brother Francis looks at him attentively then. “How lovely.” He sounds distracted though, and breaks eye contact after a few seconds to glance back at the house. The meaning of the red chrysanthemum could not have been lost on Crowley. “We’d better find her another one then.”

-

The winter is bitter that year in the Oxfordshire countryside. December bites at the old manor house, an angry predator circling and snapping at its prey. Frost cracks the ground and coats the windowpanes, and Crowley curses the single glazing of the large Tudor-style windows in Nanny’s room. The exposed masonry so beloved by Mrs Dowling saps the heat from the air, brings the gnawing of the outside cold directly to Crowley’s sensitive reptilian bones. It’s almost too cold to sleep, which is usually Crowley’s favourite thing to do in the winter.

He has decent central heating back at his flat, or the option to curl up in snake form on the slightly charred electric blanket in front of the fireplace above Aziraphale’s shop. Here in this frozen wasteland of a manor house, he wraps three layers of cashmere and lambswool around himself, stuffs his hands into his coat pockets, and lines his skirts with a quilted petticoat, carefully slimmed down from a much wider garment that Crowley used to wear in the 18th century. He considers the sacrifice of the sentimental artefact worth it.

Warlock loves the cold. He bounds about the estate, rotund in his puffy coat and bobble hat, wishing for snow. He’s missing a mitten already, though Ashtoreth thought hard enough about where it might have got to, that it ended up in her pocket.

“Nanny!” Warlock yells from the far side of the frosted lawn. “Nanny I found an acorn!”

Nanny does not need to raise her voice to be heard. “That’s nice dear.” She stands stiffly in the meagre shelter of a tall holly bush. The copse of trees wherein the holly grows shifts with each gust of knife-sharp wind.

Warlock runs across the grass at an astonishing speed, clutching the acorn in his one mittened fist. He jumps the final step to get her attention. “D’you think it’ll snow, Nanny?”

“I hope not,” Nanny replies. “It’s already below zero – if it gets much colder, I will not be leaving the house, you mark my words.”

“Don’t you like to make snowmen? Or snow angels?”

Nanny laughs a little. “No, dear, I’d rather not. I’d rather be inside, warm. Or have spring again.”

“If it _did_ snow, wouldn’t you help _me_ make a snowman?” He looks a bit put out.

She softens. “Perhaps Brother Francis would help you. He’s much better with all that than I am. Lifting and carrying, dirtying my hands – it’s not something I’m built for, you understand.”

“But what if I _want_ you to help?” Warlock insists, beginning to get frustrated. “Why don’t you both hang out with me?”

“Ah, Warlock—“

“What if I want both of you to make a snowman with me?”

“That’s not what I—”

“Don’t you like each other?”

“Warlock.” Nanny’s face turns stern, and a little shocked. “That’s not a nice accusation.”

Warlock stamps his foot. “Why don’t you ever want to hang out with him then?”

“I—”

He balls his fists up, one still clutching the acorn, the other bare. “You’re just like Mom and Dad!”

“Warlock!”

Warlock stares open-mouthed at Nanny Ashtoreth, as the reprimand of her raised voice sinks in.

It is at that moment that a bird takes flight from the holly’s higher branches, dislodging a reservoir of cold rainwater straight down the back of Crowley’s collar. He blesses loudly.

-

“They’re manifesting,” says Crowley at their next Tuesday meeting.

“Are you sure?” Aziraphale replies, from his comfortable armchair. “Not that I’m an _expert_ in these things, but this seems a little early.”

Crowley, perched on the edge of the sofa, drums his fingertips against his knee. “He had a tantrum and he made something _happen_ to the object of his anger – that seems an awful lot like something a 5-year-old Antichrist might do. Even early on.”

“Are you certain it was him?” Aziraphale dithers. He’s quite good at it. “You said he shouted at you – perhaps he just…” Aziraphale makes a fluttering motion with his fingers. “Startled the bird out of the tree?”

“Hmph.” Crowley flops back into the sofa cushions. They obligingly provide more adequate back support. “Whatever it was, it’s too damn cold to deal with it.”

Aziraphale purses his lips in a way that means he’s trying not to smirk. “You crotchety old serpent.” He reaches under the antique coffee table and pulls out a faded wool blanket, which was presumably flannel-soft at some point in previous decades. He arranges it neatly over the demon-cushion combination.

“I’m cold-blooded, angel,” protests Crowley.

Aziraphale _tsks_ fondly, then potters off to find some brandy.

-

The next night, Aziraphale tentatively knocks at the nursery room door. Warlock has already been put to bed, and Nanny Ashtoreth is supposedly tidying the toys away before she retires herself. Crowley, however, is having a muttered conversation with the wilting spider-plant on the window-ledge. He turns around and falls silent when he hears the knock, then relaxes when he sees who it is.

“Angel?”

“Oh, hello dear.” Aziraphale clicks the door quietly closed behind him. There’s a bundle of familiar fabric in his arms, and something smaller clutched in his hand.

“I’ve put him to bed already,” says Crowley needlessly.

Aziraphale shakes his head and smiles faintly into the dim room. “That isn’t…” He starts forward, proffering the bundle. “Here.”

Crowley takes it from him, and the electric blanket falls open from its neat roll. For a moment, he is silent.

“You went all the way back to London?” Crowley implies ‘ _For that?_ ’ with incredulous, yet immaculately plucked, eyebrows.

“Well,” Aziraphale looks over at the pile of toys and politely organises them into the toybox with a thought. “I haven’t much to do in the garden since the frost came in, so I thought I’d check in on the shop, and then I thought, well, my Bronte first editions would fit nicely onto that little spot on the shelf near the cottage door, and I could have something new to do in the evenings…” He smooths down the rumpled cravat at his throat fruitlessly, as it immediately springs back into the perfect rumple as soon as he stops. “And then I thought perhaps you’d appreciate some of the amenities from my flat, so…”

“You don’t get cold, angel.” Crowley looks a little floored.

“But you do; and you do so complain about it.” Aziraphale tries for mocking, but it just comes out indescribably fond. “It’s not like I’m using it, anyhow.”

He opens his hand, then, and Crowley sees what was held there: a single white bloom, its nodding head like a snowy bell on a fresh green stem.

“Chin up, my dear,” Aziraphale says, and tucks the crocus into the breast pocket of Crowley’s jacket.

-

The following year, the February half-term sends Warlock and Nanny away on holiday. Mrs Dowling has a soirée planned, so Warlock is bought a new tablet and a child-sized suitcase, and bundled off to Cornwall.

It’s the first warm burst of spring when they arrive, the holiday bungalow picturesque and lonely on a hill of fresh green, wild unkempt narcissi poking pale yellow heads out of the thawed soil in the garden. Warlock sits dejectedly in the living room and plays with his new tablet, though he quickly gets bored. The sun shines optimistically outside.

“Right,” says Nanny decisively, in the universal British way usually accompanied by slapping the tops of one’s knees, meaning _let’s go_. “Let’s go for a walk.” She adds, just in case six years old is too young for Warlock to understand this.

“Don’t want to.” Warlock remains slumped on the sofa.

“That wasn’t a suggestion, dear.” Nanny hoists him to his feet, hands under his armpits. She is surprisingly strong for such a thin woman. “We’re going to take a look at a different part of the world that will soon be yours. You should know what you’re getting into by ruling it.”

Nanny always seems so serious when she says things like that. Warlock pulls a face, but acquiesces to putting his shoes on. They’re the light-up ones that Mummy bought him for Christmas, and he feels significantly more cheerful by the time he has stomped down to the gate, lighting up the flagstones along the way.

They walk down to the beach, which is mostly deserted this time of year. There are a few people walking their dogs, and Warlock delights himself throwing sticks into the sea for the dogs to drag out again, sodden and joyful, much to the chagrin of their owners. Warlock pockets several pretty-looking shells as they crunch along the pebbled beach, and several pieces of quartz which he likes the sparkle of. Ashtoreth spies a piece of blue glass, its shape rounded by the sea, and Warlock adds it to his collection.

Cornwall’s rustic charm may go over Warlock’s head somewhat, but Crowley feels nostalgic walking past crumbling dry-stone walls and thatched cottages. His body walks in Ashtoreth’s smart clothes and dark woollen scarf while Warlock picks up sticks, climbs things he shouldn’t, and unsuccessfully chases sheep, but his mind wanders through the past, to the kind of humans who made these relics hundreds of years ago. By the time they get back to the holiday cottage, Crowley, and therefore, Ashtoreth, is feeling more than a little wistful. It’s an unusual feeling. Crowley has always felt happy with progress, the human need to press forward and to create new things out of the chaos, to solve old problems and make fresh inconveniences for themselves, but something about this place and time ignites an ache in Crowley’s belly that feels like… longing.

He tries his hardest to shake it off while he fixes Warlock some lunch – peanut butter sandwiches, an apple, and two entire chocolate bars (it is a holiday, after all). The sensation in his belly settles with the distraction of his own lunch, which Crowley-as-Ashtoreth has gotten somewhat used to eating, since children tend to notice if their adult carers do not also eat. He still feels off, somehow. Like something is missing. Crowley takes a final bite of pâté on toast when the doorbell rings. He brushes his hands off on a tea towel and goes to answer it, more than a little bewildered.

“Yes?” Crowley barely remembers to affect Ashtoreth’s gentle Scottish brogue when he speaks. “Can I—”

The person at the door is dressed in a delivery service jumpsuit, with a lanyard and a peaked cap. Her van idles at the other end of the driveway. “Ms Ashtoreth?” she asks. Crowley notes her accent; a local woman.

“The same.”

“Great,” the delivery driver smiles, relieved. “Knocked on a few wrong doors before I found y’.” She picks up the package beside her and presents it to Crowley. “Here.”

It’s an artfully arranged bouquet of seasonal flowers, wrapped in a simple white ribbon and cellophane and placed in a clear glass vase. Crowley holds it, somewhat stunned, for several seconds before the delivery driver gives up on waiting for a response and turns back down the garden path. Crowley shuts the door behind him.

It’s seasonal, Crowley thinks, at least for England. He’s not overly familiar with flowers that grow wild here, prefers non-native plants for the challenge of their cultivation and the unique pleasure of their shuddering obedience as they either grow into perfect examples of their species, or are aggressively recycled into mulch for the other more dutiful individuals. He can identify pink camellia, forget-me-nots, and a number of umbels of delicate white star-shaped flowers, which Crowley thinks might be lily of the valley. He looks it up on the internet to satisfy his curiosity, and finds that they may actually be ramsons, or wild garlic, instead. Either way, they are attractive, and the entire ensemble sets the ache in Crowley’s stomach fluttering again.

The label says simply, ‘From A.’ which confuses Crowley somewhat. Aziraphale has been giving him flowers from the garden semi-regularly for the years they have lived here, always under the guise of Francis gifting his wife the fruits of his labours. Crowley has enjoyed it, despite the fact he knows it isn’t real. Stupid, he thinks to himself, stupid and selfish of him to read into this. Aziraphale made himself quite clear fifty years ago; Crowley drove away from that curb in Soho and has attempted to keep an appropriate distance ever since.

‘From A’ throws Crowley for a loop. It’s just ‘from’, not ‘love from A’ or ‘yours, A’, or anything like that, but it’s still… Aziraphale could have signed it ‘Francis’ or ‘your husband’, and that would have made sense.

Crowley perches on a kitchen stool, staring at the beautiful offending bouquet where he’s placed it on the countertop, turning this over and over in his mind, until he’s sure he must be making a bigger fuss about it than Aziraphale meant by sending it. By signing it that way. This is just… a sympathetic gesture, that Crowley is stuck out here in Cornwall with only the Antichrist for company, while Aziraphale gets to put his feet up in his warm cottage with all his beloved books within reach. Crowley hasn’t even got his electric blanket.

That must be it, he concludes, though the thought does little to comfort him. Instead, he feels the awning in his gut open up again, reminding him of that ache that still resides there. He isn’t lonely. He has Warlock, who he is rather fond of – and besides, demons don’t get lonely (or fond of the Antichrist, for that matter).

At least, that’s what he tells himself.

-

As the weather becomes milder and the mornings cover the grass in soft dew rather than frost, Crowley spends more time in the little cottage on the east side of the estate. Their designated Tuesdays are spent drinking or reading or lounging together in the comfortable living room. A perfect roaring fire toasts a stretched-out Crowley on the rug in front of it; Aziraphale reclines in his well-worn slippers and dressing gown, feet propped up on the pouffe as he reads an equally well-worn book.

It occurs to Crowley that this is the most time they’ve spent in the same place since the 18th century. Caution had always driven them to keep a safe distance, before, even having lived in the same city for so long. Living in each other’s pockets like this is a completely different kettle of fish. It’s intimate in a way that feels completely, strangely, _wonderfully_ comfortable, despite the intensification of that ache in his stomach, which spreads to his chest whenever he is with Aziraphale.

He shifts to look over at Aziraphale, who meets his gaze and smiles softly. _Yeah_ , he thinks. _Comfortable_.

-

“Angel,” begins Crowley, approaching Aziraphale in the gardens, one humid August day. He looks irritated. “You like aphids, do you?”

Aziraphale stirs from his lazy consideration of the meagre clouds in an otherwise featureless blue sky. “Pardon?”

Crowley stands over him, looking rumpled in as much as his narrow skirt and stiff collar will allow, but not looking at Aziraphale, who has foregone the bench to lie supine on the grass. Instead, he glares at the sad-looking vegetable garden spread out to the right of their meeting spot. “Aphids. You like aphids.”

Struggling to prop himself up on his elbows, Aziraphale grumbles. “I love all of God’s creatures, dear, but—”

“But you thought,” says Crowley, even more pointedly, if possible. “Oh, those poor little green bastards, I simply must operate a sanctuary for them.”

“A -- what? I don’t—”

“Well it fucking seems like it!” At Crowley’s outburst, a handful of sun-yellow marigolds burst up through the soil, fully grown, around the offending tomato plants. “Get your _blessed_ garden in order.”

Aziraphale sits up straight, then, as Crowley storms off back towards the house. Suddenly, the soft warmth of the summer air doesn’t feel so comfortable. Aziraphale risks a small miracle, summoning his well-worn copy of _The Sentiment of Flowers; or, Language of Flora_ from the top drawer of his bedside table in the cottage. He runs careful fingers over the binding, and opens it to the section on the sunflower family. The delicately inked illustrations of each bloom still look as vibrant as when Aziraphale first purchased the book over 150 years ago.

“Marigolds…” Aziraphale mutters under his breath. He scans the page. _Huh_.

 _‘A symbol of despair and grief; jealousy or cruelty relating to a loved one_.’

“Oh,” says Aziraphale aloud. The heavy golden blooms nod in the breeze at him. The humidity sticks to the back of his neck and the skin there prickles with sweat.

“Aphids…” he says to himself. “Oh, what did I do?”

The marigolds do not respond. A ladybird lands on one as Aziraphale looks to the newest additions to the vegetable patch for answers.

Clearly, Aziraphale thinks, he has to intensify his efforts in order for this flower venture to pay off. Something big, to show Crowley he’s serious.

-

To say Aziraphale does research would not be an exaggeration. He certainly reads many more flower language books, branching out from his faithful _Language of Flora_ and going so far as to purchase six more books on the topic. He looks into his own old notes and records of floral arrangements at weddings and proposals from times gone by, and letters from those more secretive friends to whom Aziraphale gave advice on initiating and continuing clandestine affairs through the posies they wore and bouquets they sent. He gets lost in the histories of loves and passions and times gone by, spends almost a full week roaming the gardens of his own memories of humans whose fleeting lives he has touched and influenced over the years. He reads the stories of those who succeeded in finding happiness, and those who failed, and is torn between wanting to believe that he was a positive influence in their lives, and the reality that he may have simply contributed to the complex web of relationships that humans form naturally, all on their own, for good or for bad.

At the end of that week, Aziraphale goes to the nearest garden centre and buys an orange tree seedling. Its flower means _eternal love_ , and indicates the desire to engage in the most quintessentially human method of expressing love: _marriage_. The bonding of two souls; Aziraphale has always loved human weddings. He and Crowley do not have souls in the same way, but Aziraphale considers that, whatever ineffable substance angels’ and demons’ true forms are made of, theirs are the same.

He chooses a spot in the rich earth near one of the estate’s walls, where plenty of sunlight gathers in spring and summer, and waters the sapling well. He continues to water it eagerly throughout autumn, enthusiastically digging compost around it and encouraging growth with frequent pep-talks and the sparing use of miracles. He longs for the day it will provide the blossom he will use to promise Crowley eternity.

It subsequently dies in the frost of late winter.

Aziraphale is disappointed but undeterred. He visits the garden centre again in late spring and purchases a sapling this time – an orange tree section grafted onto a sturdier plant’s roots, which the nice young lady tells him is likely to produce fruit, and therefore the flowers beforehand, faster than a non-grafted tree. Whatever that means. Aziraphale might be masquerading as a gardener, but he has to admit that he has been relying on subtle miracles to ensure his horticultural success over the years.

He plants it in a similar position, after clearing out the remains of his previous failure. At first, he tries imitating Crowley’s methods of cultivating successful plant life, but feels sorry for the little tree almost immediately, and reverts to coddling it with plenty of water and feed.

Crowley confronts him about his endeavours as he’s pouring fertiliser on the poor sapling.

“Angel.”

“Ashtoreth!” Aziraphale starts, thinks about hiding the sapling from view, lest he spoil the surprise, but realises it’s too late. “I mean, my dear—”

Crowley waves his hand dismissively. “No one’s around, Aziraphale.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale relaxes marginally.

“That’s some project you’re attempting there.” He gestures to the sad-looking sapling. “It’ll be a lot of work.”

Aziraphale offers a small, knowing smile. Ah, so Crowley is going to play nonchalant. “It’ll be worth it.”

Crowley snorts. “Not if you kill it first.”

The smile on Aziraphale’s face falters slightly.

“You’re not gonna grow a healthy tree the way you’re going, angel.” Crowley continues, oblivious. “You have no functional greenhouse, you’re suffocating the poor thing with waterlogged soil, and no offence, but I doubt you have the inclination to prune it like it’ll need next year.” He crouches down next to its spindly yellow-leafed branches. “You’d be better off with something like mock orange. Easier to grow in England without a greenhouse.”

Aziraphale reels back as if struck. “ _Mock orange?_ ” he repeats.

“If you’re growing it for the flowers-“ Crowley shrugs, “-then it’s as similar as you’re going to get.” He nudges Aziraphale’s leg companionably. “It’ll even cope with your tendency to over-mulch.”

The words swirl around Aziraphale’s head and he mentally stumbles. Mock orange; he’s familiar with its meaning. He remembers its soft scented blooms being worn as a cold, cutting remark by many a rejected suitor or jilted lover. _Cruelty, grief, jealousy_. The symbol of betrayal and of broken relationships. The unsalvageable.

Crowley’s amiable expression falls at his lack of response. “Angel?”

“I… I have to…” Aziraphale hastily stands, fumbles for his fertiliser spray bottle, then abandons it when his shaking hands inevitably drop it.

“Angel!” Crowley shouts to his rapidly retreating back.

-

Aziraphale doesn’t speak to Crowley for four days. He can’t bear it – the barely concealed loathing, the rejection. How could he have missed it? Crowley seemed perfectly at ease with him just last week, seemed to appreciate Aziraphale’s romantic efforts, even look forward to them. What on Earth could he have done for Crowley to rebuff him in such a way?

When Tuesday rolls around, he drags himself out of his cottage with a heavy heart, dreading the inevitable conversation. It takes him a full half an hour to walk the short stretch of path from his abode to the main house. He turns apologies and questions over in his mind as he stalls.

He reaches the house still struggling to figure out how to even begin. He stops at the main door, keys already in hand… then puts them back in his pocket and walks away, cursing himself silently.

-

Crowley sees Aziraphale approach the front steps, pause, and retreat again, and he resolves to follow him. It’s warm out, so he doesn’t bother to put a coat or jacket on. A maid tries to apprehend him as he rushes through the corridors, but he brushes her off with a glare.

He hastens to follow the angel’s path, and eventually catches up with him further into the wooded part of the estate, in a small clearing surrounded by rose bushes whose buds nod their heads as Crowley sweeps past them hurriedly. They are alone, and Crowley is thankful that he can drop the Ashtoreth act for this conversation.

“Angel—” he starts.

Aziraphale turns and cringes. “Crowley, I’m- I’m sorry.” He frets with his felt hat in uneasy hands.

“What did I do?”

“What do you mean, ‘what did you do’ – what did _I_ do?”

“Nothing!” Crowley throws his hands in the air, exasperated. “But you’ve been ignoring me for a week now, and everyone thinks—” he huffs and runs a hand through his hair, releasing several strands from its neat styled bun, “Yesterday Sullivan asked me if we’d, and I quote, _had a tiff_.”

Aziraphale’s shoulders slump. “I don’t understand, Crowley. You accept my bouquet, you seemed like perhaps you wanted to rekindle things, then you give me _marigolds,_ and you suggest I scrap my orange blossom plan in favour of _mock orange_?!” Aziraphale looks away, a little teary and very worked up. “You’ve been mean in the past, but not cruel. Not for centuries now.”

“I’m… not following.”

“I’ve been _trying_ to tell you how I feel.”

“With… the flowers?”

“Of _course_ with the flowers, what else?” Aziraphale loses some of his bluster. “What…”

Crowley looks at him, openly confused now. “Angel, I’m sorry if I’ve put my foot in it again, but I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The flowers I’ve been…” Aziraphale clasps his hands in front of his stomach nervously. “I’ve been trying to tell you… that I was wrong, in 1967. You always know what I want ahead of my admitting to myself that I want it, and I was scared about what it meant that I wanted…. More. With you. And… I think I’d like to go on that picnic with you now.” He swallows. “That’s what the flowers meant.”

Crowley is stunned for all of half a second before regaining his indignation. “How was I supposed to know you meant all that?”

“I’ve been growing exactly the right flowers to tell you how I feel for _years_ , how could you not know?” Aziraphale says hotly.

“I like my plants – well, scaring them – while they’re _alive_ , angel, they don’t take much notice of me when they’re cut and dead! Why would I think you meant anything by it other than to…” Crowley doesn’t blush, but if he did, Aziraphale knows that he would be red enough to compete with his hair. “Play your part as my _husband_!” he finishes, a little mockingly.

“Well, I thought you were playing hard-to-get! I thought you were … oh I feel foolish now – playing up your ‘character’.” Aziraphale, who is capable of blushing, does. “As Ashtoreth.”

Crowley pauses for a moment and looks sheepish. “I didn’t even know flowers _had_ meanings.”

“But you know everything about your plants! I thought… Flower language didn’t go out of fashion that long ago. It’s hardly been a century!”

Realisation dawns. “When was that, angel?” Crowley says slowly.

“Oh, it can’t have been far into the 1900s.” Realisation hits Aziraphale, too, as he says this. Crowley didn’t wake from his century-spanning nap until well into the 1930s. “Oh.”

Aziraphale looks at his feet.

Overhead, a bird chirps in the oak tree. Crowley shifts.

“I thought you were keeping me at arm’s length still,” Crowley admits. “I thought I _went too fast_.”

Aziraphale steps towards him and reaches out a hand towards his shoulder, then hesitates. “I wasn’t ready, then. And since we were here together, I’ve been trying to catch up, but… I think I’ve been going too slowly again.” He gets over his hesitation and rests his open palm on Crowley’s upper arm. “I’m sorry, my dear.”

Crowley is taut as a wire under Aziraphale’s hand. Aziraphale leans a little closer, keenly aware of the foot of space between them, and sweeps his thumb over Crowley’s shoulder in a reassuring manner.

This small touch spurs Crowley to action, and he is immediately in Aziraphale’s space, drawn like a magnet, with his hands resting lightly on Aziraphale’s jaw. The smell of Nanny’s perfume rolls over the two of them like incense as the woodland seems to quiet. Crowley’s fingers are trembling.

“Is this too much for you?” Crowley asks in a desperate whisper.

“Not at all.”

Aziraphale kisses him.

Beyond them, the rose bush blooms.

“Did you know,” says Aziraphale against Crowley’s lips, “the pink rose means ‘perfect happiness’, and its leaf means ‘you may hope’.”

Crowley swallows down something extremely romantic and un-demon-like, but it bubbles up again before he can stop it, and comes out as a slightly strangled, “I love you.”

Aziraphale beams, radiant. “I love you too, my darling.” He kisses him again, and again, and the forest around them soaks up the sunlight that spills from the pair of them.

-

The end of August is as warm as any child could hope for. The lawns spread green and grassy before the grand manor house, and Warlock grins voraciously as he prepares to churn them up atop his BMX bike. Ashtoreth watches from a sun lounger on the patio, a soft smirk on her face. She watches Warlock soar over the raised beds from a ramp made of a sturdy plywood board supported by bricks at one end. From the other end of the lawn, Francis leaps to his feet and begins the long ungainly jog over to the scene of the crime, shouting all the while.

At the age of ten, Warlock is bound for secondary school, and this means that his Nanny-turned-tutor is no longer required, and naturally, her husband will leave with her to find work elsewhere. His parents have found him a place at a private school further north in Oxfordshire, a good school with its own after-school tutors, somewhere that Warlock can stay late for extra-curriculars out from under his parents’ feet. It’s the end of an era for the three of them, though it hasn’t quite sunk in for Warlock yet.

Francis huffs his way up the steps to the sunny patio where Ashtoreth basks, after a breathless, blustering reprimand of a grinning Warlock ends in simply ruffling his hair and telling him to wear a helmet if he’s going to ride rampant all over the garden like that. Ashtoreth is resplendent in the sunshine, her red hair loose about her shoulders and her sunglasses pushed up onto her head where she lies with her eyes closed. Francis cups a warm hand around her cheek and smooths his thumb over the crow’s feet near her left eye, where iridescent scales have started to shimmer through the skin in her relaxed state. She opens her eyes, golden and exposed, and Francis bends to kiss her.

“It’s a shame,” she says gently, “I’ll have to take off the ring when we leave.” She brings her left hand up to cover her husband’s where it still rests on her cheek. The ring feels cool against his skin, and he smiles at the sensation.

“I’ll get you another,” Francis promises. “More suited to the real you, this time.” He kisses her knuckle just above the metal band. “Platinum, I think, with a scale design, I think you’d appreciate that, maybe Ouroboros, since we were there for the creation and will be together until the very end…”

“Sounds like you have something in mind already.” Ashtoreth scrutinises his expression carefully, fondly.

He affects the very picture of innocence. “I may, possibly, have had something made, many centuries ago.”

“You spoil me, angel.”

Francis looks indulgently down at her. “I adore you.”

Ashtoreth responds with a lingering kiss to his palm.

“We’ll be leaving him soon.” Francis says after a minute, and glances out across the gardens. “Do you think we made a difference?”

A long moment stretches out between them as they watch the boy on the BMX ride to and fro.

“We’ll find out, I suppose.”

“No matter what happens, I’m glad—” He trails off, searching for the right words.

“Yeah.” Crowley drops the accent in his sincerity. He smiles resignedly up at Aziraphale. “Me too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr at tigersinlondon if you would like to yell! Comments feed the fic machine (and also make me very happy).
> 
> Flower meanings:  
> Red chrysanthemum: I love you  
> Crocus: cheerfulness  
> Pink camellia: longing for you  
> Forget-me-not: true love, memories  
> Ramson (wild garlic): courage, strength  
> (The spring bouquet is supposed to mean “I am longing for you and thinking of you always, be strong”)  
> Marigold: cruelty, grief, jealousy  
> Orange blossom: eternal love, fruitful marriage  
> Mock orange: deceit, cruelty
> 
> Disclaimer: I have never read ‘The Sentiment of Flowers; or, Language of Flora’ and thus have no idea what it says about any flowers, or how the book is organised! I’m going off a quick google search and my own personal brand of Fuck It, It’s Fiction.


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